Page FOUR

Let’s talk faith for a minute, or shall I say the turning point.

Grandma knows best.

I often say that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Keep one turned to the youth for their vibrancy and free spirit. While keeping the other turned to the older generations for their wisdom and experience. As we know, the greatest stories all start with “back in the day’.

My grandma Lydia was the epitome of woman of faith.

She was diagnosed with cancer when I was young. Being young, I find myself struggling to have clear memories of our times together. My older sister and brother would spend the weekends with her, often. I however, would kick, scream, cry and actively refuse. Why you might ask, well it’s because she had the traditional brown framed picture of Jesus on her wall and I would tell my mother that I couldn’t sleep because it was “staring at me”. 

You all know the exact picture.

Fast forward to a 19 year old, new mother moving out into her first apartment. While cleaning out her room, she found her grandmothers Bible tucked away in the top of the closet. Little did she know it would quickly become the cornerstone, foundation and lifeline.

As time passed, hard times fell and one day that same girl hit her knees with that very Bible.

You see, grandma was a highlight, underline and take notes kind of woman. For that, I will be forever grateful. Through the pages of her Bible and every highlighted piece of scripture, I was shown the way. The more I connected with her bible, the more I wanted to learn more about her faith. One day I was given a devotional that she had stored away in a hope chest. I read every prayer she had written in the first 7 pages, that is as far as she got before she passed away. To honor her and grow in my own faith, I have spent the last few years finishing it for her. I treasured it, so I would only pick up the book when I felt called. Especially when I needed to feel a little bit closer to God. Her last prayer written: 

“May I continue to depend on you for strength and guidance knowing that only in you can I find peace of mind and happiness. Forgive me when I concentrate on self and family. Help me to be the witness so that others can see Jesus in and through my life.” ”Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, “This is the word of Yahweh to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says Yahweh of hosts.“ -Zechariah‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬ ‭

I find comfort and hope that her prayers from the past still blanket me today. Though I did not have an abundance of time with her, her essence lives through me today. On every Sunday I sit in church with a highlighter in hand, a pen and my sermon notebook writing the same prayers that I pray my daughter’s take comfort in someday. March 27th, 2024 I finished her book. My last prayer written: 

“Lord, this is the last page of the book. I pray that I have made grandma Shaffer proud. She didn’t get to finish it but I did. I thank you for the messages passed down. May all the prayers prayed here be a blessing to those and the future. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.”

Thank you Grandma Shaffer for leading to Christ every step of the way. For the prayers still protecting me today. May this be your reminder that prayer matters. When you pray to God, it transcends time because prayer lives through him and when it touches your life. 

Page Three

The first three years.

The saying goes, time flies. Time is consistent and steady, it is the moments that are fleeting and sometimes agonizing. We often do not realize that when we experience something traumatic, life altering or simply challenging it doesn’t just go away once the situation is over.

We were discharged from the hospital and on the road to home. Home wasn’t what it once was and home didn’t have a constant monitoring system of breathing, heart rate, and the plethora of people with the experience and know how. 90% of parenting is learning but how do you learn through the haze of worry, healing and fear. My body was trying to recover from an emergency c-section and post partum. My mind was trying to process everything that had transpired. Half of my heart was outside of my body but placed in my arms. The first three years was when I learned what survival mode was.

Fast forward to writing this today, I found myself hesitating and pushing it away. It has been 15 days since the first time I opened this page to write and came up blank.

The saying goes, everything gets better with time. When placing memories into words, it is like experiencing it all over again and feeling those moments no matter how fleeting they were.

The difference from then and now is the ability to recognize that sometimes we have to sit with the suck. What I went through and what I was experiencing was hard and not normal, but it was my normal. It was how I survived.

Synopsis of the first three years.

-Colic and Chronic infections

-Countless hospitalizations for pneumonia

-Doctors appointments turned Diagnostics clinics

-False latent tuberculosis diagnosis, treated on 9 months of unnecessary medicine

-A week stay in isolation at St Louis Children’s

-A scope of the lungs to find the bacteria from birth had regrown

-Multiple sleep studies and diagnosed Apnea

-Antibiotics and steroids on repeat

-Tonsils and adenoids removed, adenoids grew back

and the list goes on.

All of this led me to my knees and that is where I was shown how to live.

I lived with my parents for the first 9 months of my daughters life. When I went to move out I found my Grandmother Lydia’s bible in the top of my closet. It led me through the doors of a church I visited in highschool with my best friend. There I sat alone every Sunday morning and listened. God never promises it’ll be easy, he promises he will be with you through it. Let this be a reminder for you that what we carry with us doesn’t just go away. Through time, healing and faith we learn to carry it differently and realize we were never meant to carry it alone.

The saying goes, the third time is the charm. The third time wasn’t the charm, it was the most challenging.

Page Two

Vulnerability is hard.

The days in the NICU were long. We talk about post baby symptoms, mental wellness and adjusting to life with a newborn. What you can’t prepare for is living for someone else, to go from thriving to surviving. Doctors said she is in a vulnerable state. Vulnerability by definition is susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm. We were two hours from home with no idea what each day would bring, we all were vulnerable.

Preparation for this wasn’t in my plan but it was in God’s.

We were blessed to have access to a Ronald McDonald House across the street from the hospital. If you are unfamiliar, Ronald McDonald House Charities® is a place that feels like home for families who can’t be. It is housing, meals and supports for families who’s children are receiving medical care. Despite the beginning, our time in the NICU was 14 days and for that I am grateful because others stories are different. At a week old, she was weened off a feeding tube and for the first time was able to experience skin to skin contact and begin nursing. We often take for granted a simple touch and it’s impact to our health. This moment is where I learned first hand the power and importance of an embrace. Once she was able to be held, her healing magnified. Breast milk is magic, it is natural nutrition but the vulnerability of emotional distress to cry and not be held was creating physical strain as well. The things we experience are held with us forever. A babies separation distress can later be presented as separation anxiety from youth through adolescence and even adulthood. Every nurse and doctor said that between the natural milk and the skin to skin there is no better formula for a baby to heal.

Pediatric NICU units pull a few extra heart strings. It is children, the susceptible, the innocent, the ones who serve a bigger purpose in his plan than we could ever imagine. Children change us. It changes our bodies, it changes how we view life and changes what our lives look like. Yet, looking back on these times now simply show me all that change has taught me. In those days, I knew of God but didn’t know him. I didn’t know what vulnerability truly was until I experienced it first hand and held it in my arms.

All of this is hard to write, maybe that is why I never took the time to relive it. It is hard to share, maybe because it feels like no one understands or maybe they would blame me. All of this was even harder to live and maybe that is why it has taken me 11 years and a whole lot of healing to get here. I had a dear friend tell me one day, “God is going to use your testimony in a powerful way.” Testimonies leave us vulnerable but they are also powerful and you never know who needs to hear it.

God doesn’t change your circumstance, he changes you.

Page one

11 years ago, I was nineteen years old and 8 months pregnant with a little girl.

At 38 weeks and 4 days pregnant, something felt wrong. The previous day, I had been at the doctors with my concerns and was ensured it was just a part of the pregnancy. I had an easy pregnancy, on the physical side at least. I was walking my dog everyday, working and nesting while getting closer to the arrival of my daughter. The next morning that feeling I had heightened and was paired with being unable to eat and no fetal movement. My older sister being an OB nurse at the hospital came to my side, she had a gut feeling and something felt wrong for the both of us. So much of what happened next was a blur.

If you don’t believe in God, I pray you see him through this next part.

My family and I rushed to the hospital where it was shift change, meaning double nurses and staff, those set to leave and those set to arrive. I was placed on a monitor already riddled with all the first mom feelings. The monitor was beeping, but it was only picking up one full heartbeat, mine. There was a faint second heartbeat that was decreasing. All of sudden, I was surrounded by staff and told I was being rushed to an emergency c-section. My sister was able to scrub in and the last thing I remember was her holding a mask over me telling me just to breathe, it was going to be okay.

Absolutely nothing, felt okay.

My daughter was born. The moment she was placed in the world she was blue, unresponsive and wasn’t breathing. Covered in meconium with a heartbeat that was 60 and declining. She was given epinephrine to get her heart to come back. An ambilocal line was placed for fluids and any medication needed. She had meconium aspirated in the womb, she had suffocated. The nurse who was working with her began resuscitating her. Some time elapsed with no response. The OB doctor advised the nurse to stop, she said “no, I am not losing this baby”. As they called for the air ambulance team, they stated it was already on the way but for a different baby.

Then God aligned the stars.

The baby that the air ambulance team was initially called for was stable and they immediately intubated my daughter. On their way to the helicopter they stopped the isolette next to my bed where I could see her for a split second before they airlifted her to a greater hospital for care.

I was unable to leave with her post c-section but knew she wasn’t going alone. My father and sister went with her to the new hospital while my mother stayed with me. There, they pumped all of the meconium out of her lungs, where she stayed intubated and was cooled to try and protect her brain. 24 hours later I was discharged and next to her in the NICU. She wasn’t able to eat for her first few days of life but was supported by intravenous fluids. She was supplied with oxygen and later a feeding tube. One of the hardest things was no one was able to hold her as she was in a full isolette.

But she was alive.

The first moment I was able to be with her, I put my hand into the incubator and she lifted her foot to touch it. She knew I was there.

I have always been a little hesitant to share this all as it’s not just my story to share, but hers. I owe who I am and all I have learned to her and to God who aligned the stars that very day.